ANGELA Rayner faced accusations of being a “freeloader” for saving £40,000 in stamp duty – as calls are made for an investigation into her tax affairs.
The Deputy Prime Minister is understood to have taken her name off the deeds for her Greater Manchester home before the purchase of a £800,000 south coast property.
Tory party chair Kevin Hollinrake said her three electoral registrations were a ‘sham’[/caption]
Angela Rayner saved £40,000 in stamp duty on her new seaside flat in Hove[/caption]
Dame Priti Patel dubbed the Deputy PM a ‘freeloader’[/caption]
The move, which is entirely legal, meant that she avoided paying £70,000 in stamp duty and instead paid around £30,000 tax.
It was also reported that she told the council in Manchester that her home there remains her primary residence and told Brighton and Hove council the new home was a second property for council tax reasons.
The Tories last night wrote to the independent adviser on standards Sir Laurie Magnus to launch a probe into potential breaches of the Ministerial code.
Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel blasted: “Angela Rayner, Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister is a hypocrite and a freeloader as she wants everyone else to pay higher taxes on family homes but doesn’t want to pay it herself.”
Labour Peer Lord McConnell told Times Radio: “If she allows the perception to develop that she is part of the one rule of them, one rule for us problem…she’s going to have a problem.”
Rayner may not have broken any rules on declaring her new flat to be her primary home but concerns have been raised over whether it was to pay less stamp duty and council tax.
A levy on stamp duty for those owning a second-home was brought in by the Tories in 2016 and then raised by Rachel Reeves at last year’s Budget to raise cash.
The complicated housing arrangements has raised concerns amongst Labour MPs and could put the brakes on any future leadership bid.
The Tories also attacked her for being registered to vote at her Greater Manchester, Brighton and her grace-and-favour home in central London.
Tory party chair Kevin Hollinrake said her three electoral registrations were a “sham” that were “cooked up to help her dodge council tax”.
He added: “She campaigns for higher taxes on family homes, yet won’t pay her own share.
“As the Minister responsible for election law and council tax, ‘Three Votes Rayner’ cannot be both a law-maker and a law-breaker.”
Ms Rayner’s spokesman said: “The deputy prime minister paid the relevant duty owing on the purchase of the Hove property in line with relevant requirements and entirely properly, any suggestion otherwise is entirely without basis.”
Shadow Housing Secretary James Cleverly added: “Angela Rayner is responsible for housing policy, yet she won’t even be straight about her own.
ROSS CLARK It’s fine to have a second home Angela… if only you weren’t clamping down on the rest of us owning one
By Ross Clark
I WOULD never begrudge our political leaders a place to relax.
On the contrary, I often wish they would take longer holidays, so they haven’t got so much time to dream up laws which mess up life for the rest of us.
If Angela Rayner wants to spend her weekends vaping in a rubber dinghy off Hove’s shingly beach before retiring to her new £700,000 beachfront flat, then good luck to her.
Except, that is, the Government seems to have been doing all it can during its first year in power to dissuade the rest of the population from the dream of acquiring a holiday home.
Rachel Reeves jacked up the stamp duty rate for second homes and investment properties by two per cent.
The Government has overseen the introduction of a second homes premium on council tax — originally dreamed up by the Conservatives — so that owners in many parts of the country now pay double what owner-occupiers do.
What’s more, housing minister Matthew Pennycook, who answers to Rayner, has complained in Parliament of “negative impacts of excessive concentrations of short lets and second homes” which he says are pricing locals out of the market.
He was presumably referring to places such as Hove, where a report by the council in 2022 warned that the average house price was £467,622, more than ten times the average household income of £36,788.
To be fair to Rayner, she does at least want more homes built.
She has set the Government a target of building 1.5million of them over the course of this Parliament.
We’ll need them just to keep up with the Deputy Prime Minister’s growing property portfolio.
She also owns a £650,000 house in her Greater Manchester constituency as well as enjoying the run of a grace and favour apartment in Admiralty Arch, a stone’s throw from Parliament.
Nevertheless, the hypocrisy of buying a second home when you also have use of a third home — at a time when your own department is waving a stick at second-home owners — does somewhat leave the mouth hanging open.
“Time and again she’s been asked to declare exactly what properties she owns and where she pays council tax, and time and again she has dodged those questions.
“Now we find out she’s got three homes. We’ve done everything possible to get answers, but she still refuses to come clean.
“That matters, because this is the same Deputy Prime Minister who has hiked taxes on family homes across the country.
“If she’s not prepared to be open about her own affairs while taxing everyone else heavily, the public will wonder what she has to hide.”
This comes as Angela “Three Pads” Rayner is having taxpayers cover the council tax on her grace-and-favour Whitehall flat.
Her apartment in Admiralty House is being treated as her “second home”.
As a result, the £2,034 charge is covered by the Cabinet Office.
If she declared it her main residence, she would have to pay the bill herself.
Under Labour rules brought in this April, ordinary second-home owners must pay a 100 per cent premium, doubling their bills to £4,068.
But this does not apply to Admiralty House as it is an official residence.
A Labour spokesman said: “Angela takes her responsibilities seriously and pays the council tax she owes.”
Sources close to Ms Rayner have also said her living arrangements are a result of her working in multiple locations.
Both PM Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves pay full council tax on their Downing Street homes.
Angela Rayner enjoying some family time in Hove[/caption]
Angela’s latest purchase is a luxury three-bedroom flat near Brighton[/caption]
In her most recent expenses declaration, Rayner classified her home in her Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancs, constituency as her main residence[/caption]
